honoria in ciberspazio

gallery + reflections

Student R's observation of a sequence of drawings by a fellow student:

I think the 15 minute one looks pretty natural. The lady has her hands on her hip, and the position looks comfortable. In the 30 minute ones, her hands are on her stomach which combines, to me anyway, with the curvature of her spine, and she looks really uncomfortable or she is experiencing lower abdominal pain. Was it intentional? I am trying to look back and forth between the two, and see if I can pinpoint some thing really specific, some suggestion that may help. I think it is her left arm!

At first I thought it was because the arm looks awkward in the 30 minute pose. After some thought, consideration and some time looking at both, I see why the arm looks wrong to me.

If you look back and forth between the two, you can see the pose is pretty much the same but from a a slightly different angle. The 15 minute drawing has the model looking to the left; the 30 minutes one is more to the right. Everything is pointed in a different direction...

Except the left arm, which makes the exact same angle in both pictures. interesting...

Honoria's comments:Class: R's comments on the message of the model's gesture show the power of life drawing to tell a story. In one drawing Roger notes that the model looks comfortable, in the other the model looks to be in pain.

Every life drawing tells a story that starts with the gesture. If you are working on a storyboard in which a character is shot, then it will be important to convey a casual comfort quickly transforming to a painful gesture.

As an artist and designer the power of gesture and storytelling is in your hands.